


The Time of the Living

by Creberrime



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Post-Canon, Post-Kings Rising, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:47:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23380099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Creberrime/pseuds/Creberrime
Summary: Damen realized Arles would likely awaken some things in him. His mind barely drifted to that place anymore but he just knew those thoughts were still locked somewhere within himself.He knew.-Damen visits Arles for the first time as a King.
Relationships: Damen/Laurent (Captive Prince)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 149





	The Time of the Living

**Author's Note:**

> In the books we see Damen getting triggered in two different occassions and then the subject is never addressed again, so I wanted to explore a little further into that because I needed closure and Pacat keeps ignoring my tweets.

Speculation could not be stopped, but truths, Damen knew, could be modified at convenience. 

The fact that nothing had been done to that point to drown the whispers of doubt he was so used to hear around Ios at the sight of his golden cuff spoke not of his inability to rule them out with a flick of his hand—he certainly had the power, now— but rather his unwillingness to do so. After all, while it wasn't much of a secret nor it was meant to be forgotten, whatever there was left to say about Damen's time spent on Arles beyond that gold unmistakable reminder had seemingly been, by tacit accord, vanished from everyone's mouth.

Especially Laurent’s.

And in truth, it didn't bother Damen one bit. There was some visceral knowledge that always told him to let some things go, that if he ignored something long enough it would eventually become adequately insignificant as to not have to be addressed. Damen lived by it, specially when complex emotions were the cause of his distress, creeping out from underneath dimmed down thoughts and smothered words. He had chosen to do so and he believed he could get away with it. 

Except his body sometimes chose to tell a different story.

Every time he woke up to the silent presence of Laurent beside him at a reaching distance, all of his guards down and given himself to the chance of feeling at ease with him, Damen knew he was a lucky man. And even though he would not change what had happened between them, he was painfully aware that regardless of the delicate peace they’d manage to cultivate so far, there was still a lot to deal with in matters of reconciliation.

He didn’t hold anything against Laurent for the damage done to his body under his command. If anything, all it stirred in him was something akin to compassion; he could understand that whatever Laurent was going through at the time it was not directed at Damen himself, but toward an idea of him.

That didn’t mean that he would stop tensing every time he felt Laurent’s touch on his back.

It often began as innocent caresses. Fingers tracing along the tender tissue of the pale scars, an ever-so-slight brush of skin. It was nothing —it should’ve been nothing— and yet it managed to spring a feeling of uneasiness that was impossible to wholly conceal; It then transpired into the moment so profoundly that would often end up with Laurent leaving the room with flimsy excuses and Damen staring into the darkness with a silence so charged with unspoken words that it made him feel sick, a distant heaviness weighing down on his chest. Other times it was spent lost in a battle between shame and self-justification.

After all, his body’s reactions were less about reason and more about a memory engraved in pain and survival instinct.

Damen understood that, but he also knew that it was up to him to change it. He was not one to wait for things to fall into place, he was, after all, a King.

And a warrior.

So Damen let it be felt; he bore it so he could teach his body to forgive, to let go. That was how, as it kept happening, it was less and less urgent the need to be alert, less urgent the necessity of jerking away from the reach of gentle hands that only looked to soothe an ache, a throbbing guilt.

It was slow but blissful. An active healing process that they shared every time their touches took them to a place in past, every time Auguste’s name came easier into their conversations, every time someone happened to mention the reality of Laurent’s impending return to Arles.

It was time plus the will to change and some amount of renewed happiness that eased the way for them.

But they weren't meant to linger there for long, in the soft inhale of air before the leap into dark waters. Time was pressing and Laurent had to comply.

His kingdom had dwelled too long without its righteous King.

Damen realized Arles would likely awaken some things in him. His mind barely drifted towards that place anymore but he just knew those thoughts were still locked somewhere within himself.

He knew.

So he just did what always seemed like the safest choice, as finally came the day where he found himself riding north alongside Laurent's retinue: he denied any possibility of even breaching the thought of it.

He denied the tight weight that seemed to have installed in his chest since he'd decided to come along. He denied Laurent's surreptitious glances at him as they got closer to their destination. 

He even denied the spike of irrational anger he felt as he caught sight of ornate and excess in the form of a palace.

He pushed down all of that to try and experience everything as if it was the first time he was stepping on those patterned floors. Coming inside the walls on his own volition and walking in a free man, seeing Veretians bow to him instead of him doing the bowing. 

He'd made a good job of it at first. A proper reception was held, customs were honored. Damen held himself composed in bold allure, proud and tall in his full Akielon regalia, always walking beside Laurent, ready to be introduced to the court of Arles as the new King of Akielos in view of the alliance of their nations.

But as they walked forward flanked by their men, a deliberate, barely there brush of Laurent's fingers grazed the back of his hand, no more than a gentle sweep that could as well have been accidental. And that was enough to cut him out of his removed attitude. The previous night at their last stop at Chastillon, they had held a long meeting with their captains to discuss the arrangements for the next day’s ceremony according to Veretian protocols and security measures they were to consider. At the end of it only the both of them remained in the room and Laurent had lain sprawled on the cushioned bench there, peeling an orange and speculating out loud about all the possible reasons for the Court’s refusal to the alliance. Damen had listened and added his input when he deemed he was required to but under all the incessant talking and few looks he spared him, he realized that, whether being for their closing arrival to Arles or because he was concerned on Damen's behalf, Laurent was nervous. Damen went to bed that night and if Laurent joined him at any time, he didn't know; he woke up alone. 

Now, as they breached the entrance of the palace, Damen dared risk a side glance to check on him, to verify if it wasn’t just him who was feeling this odd thing in his stomach, the unwelcome warning of something else creeping from within. But Laurent looked as detached as he often intended to be seen. 

He flexed his hand unconsciously; the feel of Laurent’s caress tingled with the ghost of an apology and something akin to a reminder: _remember that this is now._ _Remember why we are here._

_Do not dwell on how we got here._

He lifted his eyes and then he understood the timing of the gesture.

Damen had not immediately recognized the throne room without the red banners of the Regent framing the dais at both sides. The palace of Arles had seen some changes since the last time he’d been there, and not just concerning the colors; the Council now standing behind the empty throne displayed a variety of new faces that had likely been the result of Laurent's hand finally reaching into the crumbling net of the Regents leverage in Vere's politic landscape. Damen's cloak was now the only red displayed in a room full of blue, as it should be.

“ _The Council of Arles salutes King Damianos of Akielos and Crown Prince Laurent of Vere._ ”

He stood through it all, because he had to; he was expected to, even when his mind was soaring across time, fighting back a foreign violence that had been dead for long, not for good. He could no longer keep it away. The rush of blood in his ears made it difficult to hear whatever was happening now. He sank his nails into the clammy flesh of his palms and the pain was a soothing beacon of steadiness among the confusion, the vision of courtesans regarding him as the picture blurred slowly from the edges. 

“We will officially discuss the state of the alliance with Akielos tomorrow.” Laurent spoke in a very calm way. Music amidst the noise, an axis to ground him. He didn't even have to raise his voice; at the first word everybody just went dead silent. It was clear that he was regarded already a king, the title was merely a formal addition. “I now will retire with the members of the Council to examine the matters of my forthcoming ascension.”

And then they were seeing the room slowly emptying, clumps of pampered courtesans at a time. Some likely heading for the pet ring, some retiring to a more private venue. 

Laurent had appointed a servant to take Damen to his chambers. He knew it was better not to attend the meeting before setting the discussion on account of their Alliance with the Council first, his presence not yet completely welcome in matters as delicate as those dealing with Vere’s ruling. But that didn’t impede him from feeling a rise in his pulse at the prospect of going without Laurent through the palace of Arles.

Not all familiar landscapes were welcoming, and just as it’d been the first time here, he’d be alone to be greeted by them.

—

Damen was being followed. 

As he turned the corner to find himself before a giant tapestry embroidered with depictions of Veretian _plein air_ debaucheries he heard the faint sound of steps echoing his as he slowed down to see it closely. It couldn't be the servant he had dismissed some time ago; he wouldn't dare disobey a King. Nor could they be assassins; It wasn't probable for Veretians to attempt on his life in such a direct, flourishless way. Damen hoped so, at least.

He sighed. He knew this was to happen, if the sight of Laurent whispering an order to the captain of his Guard just before he retired to the Council room hadn't been enough insinuation of something being off already. 

"Jord" Damen called without deigning to even turn to see him come.

A second of silence was followed by the renewed rhythm of steps coming his way. 

Damen narrowed his eyes at his arrival, “So you left him alone, in this place." Surrounded by potential backstabbing courtesans, he did not say. 

Jord shook his head in a reassuring manner “He’s not alone, the whole Guard is with him and the Prince arranged for other security measures to be set in place.” Jord met his eyes, “he has spies.”

“Right,” of course Laurent had spies. “But why would he send his Captain, of all the men he has with him?”

Jord hesitated, “he thought it would be appropriate since I was...here, back when—” He didn't finish that sentence. He didn't have to. 

“Jord,” Damen rubbed his face. This wouldn't do. Damen didn't need a caretaker, he needed solitude to rule whatever he had to out of his system. At the very least he had earned the right to be alone and free. “If our friendship ever meant anything to you, you will allow me this.” he found his eyes and saw that he was clearly feeling his honor stumble at the request. 

“I can't disobey my Prince.” 

“He’ll understand.”

Jord held himself still for a while, caught in an evident inner struggle. He gave a long-suffering sigh in the end. “I hope, for the sake of us both, that you're right. I'll give you an hour head start.” he added “Exalted.”

Damen gave a grateful smile and waited until Jord was out of sight to turn the opposite way. He wondered how much more had arranged Laurent beforehand to try to ease the shock of his coming back, but he didn't find it in him to feel too bothered by it. One shouldn't hope for Laurent to relinquish control that easily, specially in his own territory.

Damen stepped through the place without really taking on his route, navigating in the casual manner of someone who didn’t owe anyone an explanation for wanting to roam through the very heart of the palace. The claustrophobic feel of the building was sporadically relieved by a few intervals of clear, windowed hallways that faced the gardens as he strolled past to the east wing. He paid no mind to the guards and servants he encountered in his way; he went as far as to dignify their deference with a nod, but he wouldn't dare ask for directions or engage in any further attempts of conversation. Damen wasn’t in the mood for pleasantries and he wasn't really lost, after all. It was as if his feet knew where to take him; his mind still too wary of his surroundings, ears ringing with each spike of recognition he got at every turn, but thoroughly determined nonetheless. 

If the pounding of his heart was any indication of the exact place he was heading towards, he didn't find out until he was in front of the door of what once had been his slave's rooms.

Damen froze in anticipation, his hand hovering over the doorknob. He noticed with a pang of surprise that it was trembling. It was truly startling how much his body was giving away, how much tension was locked within him, pushing for a release. He was a crumbling dam, struggling to contain the waters behind. 

He went in.

For all that Damen had experienced in his life nothing could have prepared him for the way his whole being protested the view of this place.

It was as if something was trying to break free cutting through his ribs, competing impulses pressing on him to turn around and leave while the room silently stared back, tugging at him to get closer and see what would happen. Damen recoiled.

And then he stepped forward. 

It wasn’t exactly like before. He recognized the overall structure and the dizzying combinations of patterns and carvings filling the walls, floors and even the ceiling. But the silks and cushions that served as resting place on the floor were gone, replaced by a simple bed and accompanied by a modest set of furniture. A room to accommodate a servant, many tiers above his former status back then, and judging by the folded bedding piled on top of the mattress, it was not being occupied at the moment. 

It was certainly a relief to not find it looking as he remembered, when he was brought unconscious only to wake up and realize the truth of his capture.

Damen didn't like feeling like a victim; that was a role he never thought to embody. He had always been on the other side of that fantasy, sheltered by his build and the authority he was imbued with since birth. Never expected the horror of discovering himself so far from home, deep inside enemy territory, alone, stripped and chained. Enslaved.

His eyes deviated momentarily to his golden cuff. It carried a different meaning to him that it did then. He hadn’t had the full picture at that time, to judiciously direct his hatred when looking for someone to blame. He only had Laurent and that had been easy, at first. Reasons to hate him came with every passing second locked in there. He remembered the weight of the chains attached to his collar and the strangling sense of humiliation that it provided. And though the revulsion he used to experience at the mere sight of the golden piece around his wrist had evolved into a fond reminder of what had became of the other one, in this context it was an anchor to what their real purpose had been. Restrain. Punish. Subdue.

His eyes widened a fraction with the flash of a memory. Damen knelt down on the tiled floor and raked his fingers through the place where the fixed link was previously installed to keep him grounded with short leeway of movement. The closeness to what used to be his usual perspective of the room, the recognition of the crafted pattern that used to be a fickle distraction to the never ending agony that was his solitude gave him a weird, comical sense of _déjà vu_ and almost expected to find the tiles blotted with his own blood after a beating from the guards in turn, a cutting order dropping from the Prince's lips. But there was nothing, not blood and neither iron link. The floor was immaculate. Nothing gave away the actual horror of his stay. Of his captivity.

And that felt like a punch in the gut.

He found himself outside of the room, disoriented and unstable. Damen forced his feet to move, just to be away from that hallway. 

He looked around him, frantically searching for something he didn't know how to call. It wasn't there. 

Strangely —terribly— everything he’d seen so far in the palace looked... unfazed. There was a mocking mask of normalcy in the whole place that brought a sense of uneasiness to his core; a sad flare of unfairness pressing on his own recollection of the experience there. On his truth that was painful and disarming and real. 

Damen had never wanted it to be forgotten, he realized; he was aching for some sort of retribution. He wanted to burn the place to the ground because surely, certainly, that would make it feel like there was some justice to be made on his behalf.

But Arles remained Arles as if the wrongness of its past brought no change to it. And it didn't, he understood now. Bloodstains were cleaned, bed sheets washed, banners replaced. People walked the same paths they were meant to. It all just continued being as it should. 

And that made him furious. 

Only half aware on where he was going now, he mechanically forced himself to walk ahead towards something, anything, or perhaps just away from everything. In the haze that clouded his vision he managed to recognize a familiar path that he blindly chose to follow. What else could he do? he didn't want to go back, he wasn't ready. He hadn't been ready...

He stopped, his breath caught in his throat. The ornate bronze doors before him were unguarded as nobody had been in there for a long time, unlike the last time he had seen them. He entered without sparing a second thought, fighting back dread and eagerness simultaneously.

He had made it to Laurent's former chambers. 

Damen had only stepped on that room on two occasions before, and both had been as a slave.

He remembered standing with Laurent, the first time, before the night of entertainments for the Patran delegation. _Bring me the leash_. 

The chamber remained unchanged, supposedly awaiting for his return. For all its sumptuosity it displayed an unusual lack of any personal effects that could possibly betray a state of inhabitance, although Laurent had been absent for almost eight months now, so there wasn't much to expect on that regard. What he failed to see the first time was how Laurent was noticeable in smaller, less evident details. There was a reclining couch next to a window, a vase propped on a small table with a fresh arrangement of various types of lilies—probably Laurent’s preferred one’s—and a bookshelf with a selection of titles in several languages. There was an underlying presence seeping through specific visible choices that gave away a careful consideration, the seek for a certain balance or simply a calculated show for visitors. 

Damen took a deep breath, oddly appeased by the sudden change in the overall setting. It truly felt like a respite, when it shouldn’t. He was still walking through the burning recollection of everything that he lived there. And here, in this exact place, he had made a choice that had changed the course of things for him. For them. He moved further in and almost hoped to feel a touch of Laurent's scent lingering around the way you could sense when you entered someone else's home, but the archway that led to the loggia was open to the afternoon breeze and the sweet perfume of late blooming flowers came and filled the space from the gardens beneath. 

“Enjoying your detour?”

Damen stiffened with his hand on the bookshelf. He turned to see Laurent himself sitting on a upholstered chair by the entrance. The doors were locked behind him. 

Jord, naturally, had immediately gone to inform Laurent of his furtive diversion. In a way, he was glad that Jord's loyalty to Laurent meant enough as to dare betray whatever deference he had cultivated towards the King of Akielos; he wouldn't overstep his word unless Laurent commanded him to, and he probably had done so. But it had been hardly half an hour since they parted ways and nothing in Laurent’s cool demeanor gave away how long he’d been posted there.

Had he been looking for Damen somewhere else or had he known all along he’d come to this very room?

Laurent stood up, a silent demand for a response written across his face.

The moment felt too intimate.

“I wanted to see how it looked.” Damen said.

“You mean without all the blood and wrecked furniture?”

“Without you," he risked a glance in his way but Laurent remained afar. Sometimes they encountered situations like these, heavy and unpredictable, in which they'd fall back into old habits because they felt familiar, a safer way to approach a certain subject. Laurent’s walls were up again. "And with you. This you.”

He resumed his stroll across the room, overly aware of the weight of cold blue eyes on him with every step. He tried not to think about prey and predator circling each other before one made a decisive move. 

Damen felt weirdly enchanted by the idea of him occupying these chambers while growing up. Wherever he looked he saw traces of habits that he now could recognize as essentially his and through them Damen tried to picture Laurent in this space as a young boy, comfortable in the quiet solitude of the paths he traced through carpeted floors or the spots he chose to sit on for reading a favorite book.

This place was so secretly embedded with Laurent that he found it impossible to hate as he wished to.

“We are not to stay here. We have the Royal Chambers now” Laurent said. 

The weight of that piece of information changed something in the gentle calm around them. Damen looked for his eyes and he found them distant and cold. A mask.

“Did he sleep in there?” The words left him before he could even think about them. 

Laurent studied his expression with renewed, fierce scrutiny. He allowed the silence to linger for a moment, the room seemed vast between them. 

"What would you like me to say?" He asked.

Damen considered, for a moment, what kind of answer he was expecting from Laurent. He shook his head in the end. He didn’t understand what he was supposed to feel or how to deal with what felt like too much and not enough at the same time. He thought it might be harder —should be harder—for him to just be back there with Laurent albeit in a completely different situation than before. It turns out it wasn't. If anything, Laurent's presence seemed to have mitigated all of his previous impressions and reactions. He felt exposed and fragile, like tender skin over a mended wound. A simple touch could break him.

“I—” Laurent faltered. “That is not all there is about here.” A pause. “Nor about me.” 

Damen felt his heart stutter. “Laurent—”

“The horrors of my youth are nothing but a stain in a long list of other memories.” He seemed to pause there, eyes wandering to the windows, lost for a moment in some distant time he could not share with him. “I don’t wish to forget a thing.”

Damen should know about that, and he did. They both shared the burden of betrayal at the hands of men they trusted. Of family. But that didn't suffice as excuse to want it all gone; there was so much more in their pasts than just that fault. There was little sense in blaming the dead or the places that witnessed them. 

The royal chambers in Ios had been his father's, then Kastor’s, then Laurent's and his. Before that they were inhabited by other kings and queens. Little remained of them now and it didn't matter much; the places held no memory on themselves, only people carried their testimonies. 

And the Regent and all his subjects were gone, and none of their names would ever reach the inside of these walls again.

He thought of the Artesian ruins, pieces of forgotten lives scattered across the lands, and thought that, even unwillingly, history could be overwritten; stepped on by newer and unknowing generations. Or even if the past could not be completely erased, it still could be dimmed down, thinned out and reshaped. Carved into a different silhouette, given a new color.

This was the time of the living; the past was long dead. 

Laurent seemed conflicted, unsure of what to do or where to be. His body stood before him all tension and wariness as if he could not but play the part of this old self. The cruel Frigid Prince, alone and vulnerable. Stoic and unyielding. 

It was shame what seemingly had him like this, but also a hint of concern for Damen’s judgement on what he treasured beyond what Damen knew of him. He found no words of comfort to offer to this. They were on similar, unstable ground; no rage nor fear, not even secrets to protect.

Only doubt and uncertainty. And Damen was certain of one thing only.

He had a hand cupped in Laurent’s cheek and he didn’t even recall raising it to reach him. Pale lashes fluttered at the contact and the ghost of a breath left his lips with a hint of small voice. Love was a word he didn’t remember using before and now it came so easily to his mind. It was what remained after all the turmoil in their marred history. What became of the blood stained memories in this very place.

Laurent covered his hand with his own. 

“I can almost share your loathing.” A whisper.

“Do you think me so spiteful?” 

“I think you hurt, and resentful.”

“I'm not.”

And he wasn’t, really, surprisingly. Not anymore. Not when this was what he otherwise gained in return. 

He leaned down and it was Laurent who closed the distance with the easiness of a rehearsed dance. It was funny how simple it was. They fitted, they weren't but hands to be held, eyes to drown into, skin to be claimed. Their lips met and reshaped their surroundings. It was just the two of them in the now and facing a future that began at the whisper of a word.

“ _Stay._ ” 

This, what they had, was untouchable and nothing about the world around them could change anything about the single, simple truth that they treasured; of them, alive. Them, together.

Lips ghosted against each other before meeting time and time again with tenderness that had never before reached the confines of this chambers. He wanted to erase all the unpleasantness that he knew Laurent was hiding behind the façade of cold elusiveness. Breaking his armour open to caress his core.

Their game deepened and intensified, a crescendo they'd learn to cherish. It was eager and wild and full of words that needn’t be said, only shared in the blazing surrender of skin and breath. Fingers found their way to velvety laces and golden strands of hair. Tension slowly recoiling in the joining of their bodies.

They had reached Laurent's bed.

His clothes were rapidly being discarded, burning a trail wherever their skins made contact. Damen lay bare on the bed as Laurent got up to fetch a phial, undone laces swaying in the air behind him. He lifted his eyes to catch the sublime image of his lover undressing before him as he had done once at Karthas, all piercing glances and unbidden smiles and heat tinting his face pink. He’d never get tired of it, of the sight of Laurent willingly giving so much of him, revealing himself inch by inch and so much more than that.

“Come here,” he said, breathless.

Laurent raised an eyebrow and took a step to lay a knee on the bed carefully keeping himself out of arm's reach from Damen. “Is that an order?”

Damen felt his mouth curve in delight. “In your own kingdom? I wouldn't dream of it.”

They were sharing air and heartbeats and everything else, moving together, a rolling of hips seeking further contact and Laurent's lips and tongue all over him, pinning him to the mattress with a grip on his wrists. The cuffs clinked now and then and its music felt familiar and extremely moving in Laurent's bedchamber.

Then a sound, a push and their positions changed. The whole expanse of Laurent's back for Damen to taste and mark. His voice, ever present in stray broken syllables, muffled by the pillows underneath. It was after a long interval of touching, of curving against Laurent's body with oiled fingers lost between his legs that Laurent got up and sat on top of him straddling his hips, reaching behind to grip Damen’s cock. Damen lifted his hands to hold him in place, his fingertips dipping in the flesh like wanting to enter him in all of the possible ways. it was difficult to remain still when Laurent's grip on him felt so overwhelmingly hot, his hand moving as he knew Damen liked, oiling him nice and good before gently, slowly sinking onto him. 

Damen groaned and relished in the heat consuming him from the inside. He gave himself over to the feeling of Laurent taking whole control of his pleasure. Their pleasure. 

Where Laurent had been so powerless before, many times before, Damen let him take whatever he wanted from him. They chased the sweet promise of surrender, moving against each other and breathing out unchecked words into the other’s skin. Laurent lost himself with a gasp and a forward motion that let him holding on to Damen’s shoulders as he rode out the throbs of ecstasy until Damen was allowed to grab him to turn them over and seek his own release in the tight clenching feel of Laurent around him. It was dizzying, the power of it. _It was absolute_.

— 

It was in the aftermath of their coupling, in the quiet fall of night starkly interrupted by the firelight from the hearth lit by servants not long ago, that Damen allowed his mind to drift away, again.

It was odd feeling you had everything when you had lost so much in the way there, but in reality, the standards of a King became much more obscure as the limits to getting whatever they wished for blurred with it. Right now, the only thing he wanted was a longer night to hold Laurent in his arms, the press of duty roaring loud outside this makeshift haven that was the chance of sleeping together after an afternoon of lovemaking. 

Yet, while it had been easier to face all terrors in the now wide stretch of time and distance, the pang of irresoluteness throbbed to be acknowledged when it came to the challenging thought of going back to all that awaited them outside.

But it hung heavy, the reality of Arles existing while they lie there, spent and vulnerable.

Vere would always feel like an hostile place for Damen. Too much of him had been corrupted by its devices and no matter how hard they’d try to make it up, that wouldn’t magically disappear. He turned his eyes to watch Laurent rest, his sated body outlined by the light of the fireplace. He was lying on his stomach with his face hidden in the crook of Damen's neck and one arm thrown across Damen's middle in a proprietary hold. He couldn't help the smile that came to his lips as his hand came to brush against pale skin and his head turned to direct a blue eye lazily to him, framed by the tousled strands of hair falling around his face. 

It had been him, that day, who had guided Damen out of himself and they had built something in the shatters of their shared unraveling, sacred in its own way. Not that it changed the wounds of the past, not that it meant everything would be alright, but it shone brighter than all the rest. It burned nicer in his heart. 

He continued his silent attentions trailing down his spine, tracing muscles and dips and swells, blood singing in the tip of his fingers, and he thought about how the road to becoming head of a nation stripped you away of unexpected things, and he knew that at least for the foreseeable future as their countries remained separated, they’d be missing the chance to be like this more and more. 

Not even all the power in their hands could part them away from the place they’d once called home. It carried too much of them to just leave it behind.

And Vere, this land of velvety lies and decadence, it was part of Laurent. It had been home for him. 

It’d continue to be part of Damen’s future too.

Laurent turned his face to him and his lashes grazed Damen cheeks as he closed the distance to softly kiss his lips one more time.

“Will you take me to meet Auguste tomorrow?” Damen asked.

 _Please let me in_ , he didn't let the words out but knew that somehow they were being heard, _let me stay._

Laurent smiled then, and the balm of his joy soothed all his doubts as if nothing else mattered in the world. 

“I will.” 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on [Tumblr](https://arsmara.tumblr.com)!


End file.
